Pragmatic: relating to matters of fact or practical affairs often to the exclusion of intellectual or artistic matters: practical as opposed to idealistic

Merriam-Webster

There is nothing new under the sun, as the age-old saying goes, and in anarchist and libertarian circles, it is the same. Yet another “alt-right” (remember those guys?) type of movement has emerged, dissuading many who otherwise might finally grasp the essence of self-ownership and freedom into embracing a so-called “practical,” might-makes-right, sometimes statist-apologetic slippery-slopism we can call “post libertarian” thought. An examination of practical reality shows, however, that this — and not hardcore, principled voluntaryism — is the naive pipe dream, after all.

The New Alt-Right

Understanding the essence of these new, cancerous patterns of thought is easy: just picture the arc of Stefan Molyneux’s reasoning over the years, as he shot from full-on anarchist to singing the national anthem when Donald J. Trump was elected. Of course, with people like this, such de-evolutions always mean they didn’t understand libertarian principle in the first place. They can never stay rooted to the rock of principled reality for long. They always fall off.

In a nutshell, criticism from these post-libertarian types of principled voluntaryists often sounds like this:

“The state is a real thing. You can’t deny that. They have guns and power, and simply talking about your idealistic principles isn’t going to change that.”

The unspoken subtext here is that leveraging some amount of state violence against the non-violent is sometimes necessary for more freedom to proliferate.

Aside from the fact that most voluntaryists readily acknowledge the reality of the threat the state presents (so let’s dismiss that straw man argument outright), the words themselves are not wrong. There is, in reality, a violent group of individuals identifying collectively as the state with massive amounts of power.

What the post-libertarian does, however, is make an illogical leap from this foundational reality to allude that violent state force is sometimes justified, but just “when necessary.” An example of this mistake is the common misguided argument that enforcement of state borders is sometimes justified via the voluntaryist property ethic:

“A country is just an individual writ large! It has the right to defend itself!”

Some libertarian thinkers who are practically worshipped today, even in anarchist circles, have made this error.

Hans Herman Hoppe, for his part, has argued in the past in essays that while goods should be able to cross state borders for trade, people present a burden on a nation’s tax system, so in that sense, it is sometimes better for freedom if statist borders are upheld. The glaring oversight here is first that non-private property borders never preclude the free individual from their right to move their body through space, and second, that shipping goods and mass trade also wear down taxpayer-funded infrastructure in a major fashion. But I digress.

The real problem: While a border enforced by armed individuals may indeed keep an area safer than if it were not (thanks almost always to statist ravages across the border which have destroyed economies, livelihoods, and cultures, making individuals desperate and violent), it is yet logically untenable to posit that a little statist violence to preserve the greater good is practical, where the end goal for society is minimum violence.

Why? It’s easy. If your society accepts that violation of the non-violent is sometimes necessary for the greater good, now a seat of power is in place, where only select individuals get to decide who may exercise their self-ownership. Even with the most well-intentioned individual occupying this privileged position, maximized peace (minimized violence) is impossible. And much worse, the level of violence can only increase from this primary philosophical/logical error, as free-market action of individuals can never be shoved into any one person’s or group of individuals’ templates, without creating conflict. This conflict breeds a power struggle, which then encourages greater violent collectivism, resulting finally in the takeover of one group now in power, leveraging maximized violence to maintain that power. If you want proof, check out the “great American experiment.”

Why Pragmatism Is Impractical

In short, what the post-libs call “pragmatism” always must logically devolve again into full-blown statism. This is highly impractical if our end goal is to minimize violent chaos. And this stinky brand of the so-called practical doesn’t always translate into a defense of statist borders. The sophistry employed is often much slimier.

Selective praise of violent (non-self-defensive) force:

Here we see the type of nebulous allusions often leveraged in an attempt to refute hard anarchism and self-ownership. The underlying assumption is “as long as I am helping someone, or restoring order, it is sometimes not violent to violate the consent of others.” To save time in refuting those who might object here with situations in which initiatory force is employed to save a life, please see here. The hard axioms need not change for different propertarian communities to build their own policies on top of the self-ownership axiom should all individual parties freely consent. But without the self-ownership axiom and the conceptions of property that ensue, there is no basis for such policy to be built at all. What we see in the picture above is a conflation of statist violence with such policy.

To illustrate with two scenarios:

I could live in a community of people who all acknowledge the reality of self-ownership. Our conceptions of property come from this self-ownership. We all individually agree that should we need a drug intervention, it is okay for any other member of the community to force it on us. That is the policy we decide to consent to via our self-ownership, within our small community.

Conversely, imagine a community where there is no self-ownership axiom recognized. Someone’s drug use down the way, though not impinging on my body or property, is viewed as chaotic, and bothers me. I take out my pistol, and head down the street to force him to get help.

Which of the above two scenarios is legit (suspending momentarily that even in the first, someone could opt out as self-ownership is an objective reality and cannot be given up) from the perspective of maximized sustainable peace? As addressed already above, the second society would simply devolve into pure chaos.

Misunderstanding of what libertarianism is:

Yes, actually, it does. Instead of licking the tail end of the political system, people engaging in direct disobedience, moving away, self-defense, and dropping the cult of statism for principled voluntaryism would render the reality of mass “mandatory vaccination” damn near impossible. Ripping on the one logical and reality-grounded philosophy which promotes freedom for all is a severely misguided approach for bringing about freedom for all.

While localized political action can make a dent here and there, and hack at some of the leaves on the tree of tyranny, it can never uproot it. The critical failure here is in the poster’s assumption that libertarianism is some type of mere option among many moral options for dealing with state violence.

Ironically, the principled recognition of the biological, immutable, metaphysical and concrete reality of body autonomy (self-ownership) is the basis for many of the post-libertarians’ arguments for “reasonable statism.” They make prescriptions for violence-based political action, justifying them because they own themselves and have a right to protect themselves…by way of impinging on other self-owners. It’s a self-detonating position.

Falling Victim to Confusion

To conclude, there is only one practical and truly pragmatic solution to state violence against the individual. Only one that, as Merriam-Webster says, is “practical as opposed to idealistic.”

That is the uncompromising recognition of the self-ownership of the individual, no matter what.

No matter the weak justification, every state law violates non-violent individuals. To denigrate a logical, reality-rooted philosophy called libertarianism for an immediate “greater good” not only is anti-libertarian and immoral, but it is also practically untenable, as it opens the door once again for the legitimization of violent statist ideals.

Everything comes from an idea. Societies are not shaped by rocks, but by thinking, acting, individuals. If these individuals possess poisoned ideas disconnected from logic and reality, the result will be poison. This is precisely why arbitrary cherry-picking of this or that statist policy to be employed as a stop-gap or temporary measure, combined with shitting on people who don’t want to hurt even one other non-violent individual, is misguided, if unintentional. It can logically never result in a better situation, long haul, and for all individuals.

If the concern, however, is not to protect the right to self-ownership of every individual, then I guess the term “post-libertarian” is probably apt. And so is the term “statist.” So in that sense, if they self-label, it should be considered a good thing for all of us wacky, starry-eyed realists.

No amount of edgy “nuance” or talk about the benefits of monarchism (both of which are a trademark of this new post-lib ideology) changes the fact that the slavery of statism is not only wrong but is also always logically untenable. Impractical, in other words. And enough with the strawmen. Would I rather live under a monarch with more freedom than in a more violent, chaos ridden situation in another type of government? Most likely.

What we voluntaryists are wondering is why logic and principle — the very solution to the whole problem of statism in the first place — need to be denigrated. Is it for social media clout? For controversy? Maybe it is just an unintentional oversight. Whatever the reason, the conversation has been bastardized, and now serves the statist agenda. If facing logical reality is unpalatable, so be it.

Some of us think the cost is worth it.